1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to key assignment. More specifically, the present invention relates to key assignment for a brand.
2. Description of the Related Art
An increasing number of individuals and businesses rely on wireless services to carry out various transactions and enable communication from remote locations. Many businesses such as hotels and coffee houses have sought to capitalize on this trend and offer free wireless access to attract and retain customers. A business offering such wireless access may do by creating a “hotspot”—a location that offers Internet access over a wireless local area network through the use of a router connected to a link to an Internet service provider.
Many hotspots only offer open and unsecured communications. Some users, however, may wish to engage in communications or transactions that involve personal, sensitive, or proprietary information that is not necessarily suited for an open and unsecured communications network. As such, users may wish for such transactions be conducted in a secure manner, such that such information may not be exposed or stolen.
Implementing security features is complicated, difficult to maintain, and requires a high level of technical knowledge. An additional complication is that users at a hotspot may be continually changing. Authentication relying on 802.1x/EAP is not a practical option as hotspot users may vary widely in security needs. Setting up a RADIUS server on a network backend may likewise be complicated and unwieldy.
Pre-shared key (PSK)-based security systems require that a secret be manually entered onto all user devices using the network. A PSK-based system relies on a secret shared between and stored at both the client station and the access point. The secret may be, for example, a long bit stream, such as a passphrase, a password, a hexadecimal string, or the like. Used by a client station and the access point to authenticate each other, the secret may also be used to generate an encryption key set.
A disadvantage to PSK-based systems is that once the shared secret becomes known to unauthorized personnel, the security of the entire network is compromised. This may pose a problem where network access is provided to an ever-changing set of numerous, diverse, and transient mobile users. Generally, to maintain the security of a PSK-based system, the secret must be changed on all client stations whenever a person with knowledge of the secret departs from the organization or is no longer authorized to access the network. As a result, many commercial organizations (e.g., small- and medium-sized businesses or enterprises with a high degree of turn over) have been unable to deploy security measures around their hotspots, because of their lack of expertise and/or full-time professional technical support.
In addition, a business (e.g., branded hotels) may have multiple locations where customers are provided service. While wireless internet services may be provided at these multiple locations, the customer is generally required to login and authenticate anew at each location. Such a business may wish to be able to leverage the information previously provided and steps previously performed at one location to facilitate and ease the customer experience at a second location. As used herein, a brand refers to any related products or services that may be provided at a plurality of locations. A branded hotspot, for example, may be a hotspot associated with a particular coffee shop that is associated with a chain of coffee shops, each of which may have its own branded hotspot.